[SCENE: Engineering section of ISS Pegasus. The ship has, once again, been subject to a series of wormholes from attempting to enter warp after assurances from Captain Korrioth and Lieutenant Cmdr. Ozymandias McCool that the intermix formula for the new warp core had been properly calibrated and was in perfect balance. Korrioth & McCool have just picked themselves up off the deck.

The Engineering doors slide open. Through the doorway strides a hooded figure, headed straight for the duo. Under the hood, one sees two blazing mini-stars where eyes would normally be.

The figure closes to within ten feet of Korrioth & McCool, then makes a sweeping gesture to his right. Both McCool and the Klingon-Vulcan hybrid are catapulted into the nearest bulkhead with considerably significant force. They crumple to the floor and do not move.

Without waiting to see the effect of the gesture, the hooded figure stretches out his hand.

From the belt of the robe, a long cylindrical object jumps to the outstretched hand. As the hand closes around the tubular object, a long, bright energy projection, purple in color, exudes from one end.

The figure takes two steps to his left, towards the Jawa on McCool’s crew and swings this sword of light. The beam catches the unfortunate Jawa at the neck and beheads him.

The remainder of the conscious Engineering crew dives for cover, leaving the hooded figure standing alone. The being looks from side to side and around behind him, then raises the sword to a salute and touches a control on the hilt. The purple beam disappears back into the tube.

Only then does the figure remove his hood to reveal Lord Darth Venomous, whose face is still contorted into a ferocious rage. He turns to glare at the still-unconscious Korrioth & McCool, then strides towards a computer control panel near the newly-installed warp core.

Another gesture, and the panel cover underneath flies off, revealing several banks of isolinear chips. Venomous studies the panel for a long moment, then closes his eyes & extends his hands. They move slowly, silently, as if the Sith Lord’s fingertips are actually touching the chips.

Abruptly, the hands stop. Venomous, his eyes still closed, cocks his head slightly; his mood & facial expression have changed significantly.

Two fingers motion towards the panel, and two isolinear chips – one from near the top and one at the bottom – slip out of their respective ports, cross and land in those of their counterparts’ slots.

Venomous opens his eyes, steps towards a keypad on the panel, and touches one key.

The effect is instaneous. The warp core, heretofore emitting a dull glow, springs to life with a nearly blinding light. The Dark Jedi touches another control and the intense light recedes somewhat. Venomous looks at the still-unconscious forms of Korrioth & McCool.]

LSIK&T: Next time you need my help, p’tahkmey, ask me!!!!!

…

Took a little bit, but the new solid-state hard drive is online and humming along nicely.

This is a nice piece of technology-ery. It’s like having a 32-gigabyte flash drive running your system. Way faster than a standard IDE or SCSI drive, and probably more durable as well, seeing as there are no moving parts. Already the latency which was a problem on the old SCSI system drive has disappeared.

Only bad thing is that it’s only a 32-gig drive instead of the 64 that I wanted, but that’s only a minor annoyance. Once I get a second one for the swap file, this system, already screaming, will run at near transwarp speeds.

Next step: SSDs for the rest of the systems in my network. Stay tuned.

It helps, though, if you have Microsoft Internet Explorer set about 1024x768 1280x1024 with your Favorites window activated on the left deactivated. (At least until I can get a better handle on how WordPress works.)